It’s hard getting away to rest and relax. It’s even harder to leave all our worries, troubles, and responsibilities behind for the purpose of growing in our love for God and one-another. But that’s what we’ll endeavor to do on Friday. We hope you have great expectation for deepening your personal knowledge of Jesus love and presence in your life.
Our hope for this retreat is that we might encounter Christ in the wilderness together.
There are a few ways to help us hear the voice of the Spirit into our lives:
Physically Leave - Get out of your setting and get to a new setting. We’ll do that.
Technologically Leave - Prepare your work, family, and friends that you’re getting out of town so you don’t get pulled back into the situations, responsibilities of your ordinary life. Our hope is we will be encouraged and then sent back to our ordinary lives with renewed power and confidence in Christ.
Relationally Engage - Get ready to make new friends and hang out with new people.
Prepare to Meet God - It’s hard to come into these things entirely “cold”. We encourage you to read Psalm 16 and do a Lectio Divina based on the psalm. For the retreat we will be reflecting on the lives of David and Jonathan as they engage battles and grew together as friends and this psalm will help us get in that mindset.
Lectio Divina of Psalm 16
PAUSE
Take a few moments to breathe. Set down your phone, remove distractions. Allow yourself to become present in this moment with the Spirit of God.
Spirit, give me a heart to hear you. Give me a passion to know your voice above all others. Spirit, I come needing a bigger picture of your work, I come needing to trust in more of who you are.
REFLECT
Read the Psalm 16. And reflect on the words, phrases, and images the Spirit is highlighting for you. What is the Word saying to you? How does the Word challenge you and stretch you?
Thinking about this retreat? What do you desire? How do you long to grow in your understanding of God? How are you feeling about God
ASK
Read the passage again. Ask God to move and transform you through the words and through this retreat. Ask for others that you know are coming to this retreat. Pray for your DNA group. Pray for your household to be cared for while you’re God. Pray for God’s work to be done through this retreat.
YIELD
Read the passage again. Then pray a prayer of surrender. Yield and submit to this passage. “Not my will, but yours.”